A Day at Edgeworth's
by Elma MacBetsy
Summary: Edgeworth is redecorating! But even he, as clever as he is, couldn't predict the destruction that his helpers would bring.


**Disclaimer: Phoenix Wright is owned by Capcom, not me.**

**This story was inspired after a day spent repainting my bedroom with my sister. It was a fun day…**

**A Day at Edgeworth's**

When the invitation for him, Maya and Pearl to assist Edgeworth with redecorating his apartment came, it didn't occur to Phoenix just how disastrous it would end up being.

It had started well enough. The three of them had arrived at Edgeworth's incredibly swanky and expensive apartment (whatever anyone may say, Phoenix was NOT jealous. Not even a little bit) at exactly 9am. Edgeworth had been waiting for them outside, ready to show them in. For once he'd not been wearing his pink suit, for whatever he might say, that was its colour, and was instead wearing a pair of worn jeans and a T-shirt the exact same shade as his suit. He'd even been smiling, at least a little.

They'd all gone up in the incredibly swanky and expensive looking elevator (again, Phoenix was NOT jealous. Who needed an elevator doorman anyway?). Edgeworth had shown his three guests into his home, where the floors and furniture had all been carefully covered with old sheets. Edgeworth had taken them to his bedroom, where rollers and brushes were all carefully laid out on the floor, in size order. He and Phoenix carefully poured the pink (the label saying 'magenta' on the tin didn't fool someone as clever as Phoenix), again the same colour as Edgeworth's infamous suit, into trays, and the four of them began painting. In actuality, it had really only been Phoenix and Edgeworth doing the painting. The girls seemed more content to sit on the floor and inform them of spots they'd 'missed' (or parts of the wall on the other side of the room they hadn't gotten to yet) in annoying loud voices. In fact, given how unsurprised Edgeworth appeared to be at their unhelpfulness, Phoenix suspected that Maya and Pearl had only been invited out of politeness.

The bedroom was finished by 12 o'clock. Edgeworth informed them that the next room to paint was the living room. They picked up the brushes and moved into the living room, which was to be painted with 'ivory'. They'd done all but one wall when Edgeworth told them that they'd run out of the paint, and that he'd be about half an hour getting some more. Less than a minute after the door had been closed, disaster struck for the first time.

Maya dipped her fingers in the remains of the 'magenta' (PINK) paint.

"Pearly…" She approached the younger Fey slowly. "You've got some paint, just…there!" She tapped the girl's nose and ran to the other side of the room. Pearl brought her hand up to touch her face, and discovered that there was now a pink blob on her nose.

"Mystic Maya, why did you put paint on my nose?" She asked, genuinely confused. Maya shrugged, then smiled evilly.

"The real question is… Whatcha gonna do about it?" Realisation swept over Pearl and her expression began to mirror Maya's. She dipped her hand into the paint pot next to her… and flung it at Maya, hitting her square in the chest. With that, a brutal paint fight began, Phoenix just barely being able to keep out of the way.

"Maya… maybe you shouldn't do that…" She ignored him. He tried again. "Pearls, Mr. Edgeworth would be extremely unhappy if you got paint all over his living room…" Again his pleas fell on deaf ears. For the nest twenty minutes, the situation continued with Phoenix standing in the middle of the room, begging the two girls running circles around him throwing and avoiding paint to stop. None of them noticed that all the running was moving the sheets, leaving a fair bit of floor and sofa uncovered.

A few minutes later, the fight ended. Pearl was standing behind the now exposed sofa, hoping to find some sort of shelter. Maya gave her another evil smile, picked up the pot of paint and threw its entire contents at Pearl. Pearl ducked. And the contents of the paint pot went all over Edgeworth's sofa. And the floor around the sofa. And his bedroom door, just to the left of the sofa. And the newly painted ivory wall, behind the sofa. The three people in the room stood in stunned silence as they stared at the sofa. And the floor. And the door. And the wall. It was also at that precise moment that Edgeworth returned, can of paint in tow.

The first thing he noticed was that for some inexplicable reason, the three people he'd left behind were all staring at the wall, looking incredibly shocked. He was about to ask what they were looking at, but when he followed their gaze and looked up and down from floor to ceiling the words were lost.

"God almighty…" Edgeworth breathed out. It was these words that alerted the three others in the room of his presence. They all turned their attention on Edgeworth, their expressions a mixture of apologetic, guilty and sheepish. Edgeworth's mouth opened and shut a few times, and a few syllables came out. Phoenix decided that Edgeworth's reaction was very similar to when a contradiction was found in the prosecutor's witness' testimonies. An infinite amount of time seemed to pass before anything more was said.

"Er…Hi." Phoenix greeted, lamely. Despite his anger, Edgeworth noted that Phoenix's expression was very similar to the one he wore when he'd just presented the wrong evidence in court, complete with a hand resting on the back of his head

"Wh… What…" Edgeworth stopped to gather his thoughts together again enough to form a coherent sentence. He gritted his teeth. "What. The. Hell. Have. You. Done. To. My. House?!" He was met with complete silence. "I was only gone half an hour!" He yelled. He looked around at them all. Phoenix had gone back to looking extremely apologetic. Somehow, Edgeworth got the idea that this was the work of the two Fey girls. Pearl was blushing slightly and looking away. When he got to Maya, however, she wore a big smile.

"Don't worry, Mr. Edgeworth! Pearl and I will clean it up, won't we Pearl?" Pearl visibly relaxed.

"Right! Come one, Mystic Maya!" The two girls turned and headed to the kitchen.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" Both girls froze at the outburst and slowly turned around to face Edgeworth, who again looked very similar to when Phoenix found a contradiction in his witness' testimonies. He was even bent over slightly in the same way. He slowly stood up, seemingly having got a hold of himself. "Ahem. I mean, no, don't worry about that. Wright and I will sort it out. You two…" He paused trying to think of something they could do that was far away from anything paint related. "How about you two go into the kitchen and make a start on some lunch for us all?" The two girls nodded and gave small bows, smiling, and then ran off into the kitchen. Unfortunately, Edgeworth had failed to notice Phoenix violently shaking his head, making 'no' actions with his arms and mouthing that same word.

As soon as the girls were gone, Edgeworth turned his attention to Phoenix.

"What the hell happened?!" he asked. Phoenix shrugged.

"They got into a paint fight. To be honest, I'm surprised it lasted as long as it did without something like this happening." He gestured at the mess behind him. Edgeworth continued to glare.

"Didn't you tell them _not_ to?" Again, Phoenix shrugged.

"I tried. They didn't listen." At Edgeworth's less than happy expression, Phoenix carried on. "I mean, what did you want to me to do, wrestle them to the floor? Tie them up? Lock them in a cupboard where they couldn't get at anything?" There was no answer. There wasn't any need for one. Edgeworth's expression spoke volumes. Phoenix swallowed, dreading the day _he_ annoyed Edgeworth enough to get locked in a cupboard. Edgeworth took a deep breath and calmed slightly.

"Right. Well I see now that it was foolish of me to expect you to have some kind of control over your assistant and your…" He stopped, realising that he didn't have any idea how the younger girl was related to Phoenix. "And the other one." He eventually finished, somewhat pathetically. "Anyway, I suppose we better make a start clearing up this mess." Edgeworth walked over to a cupboard and got out the necessary cleaning supplies. He set them down on the floor the two men attempted to get the paint out of the carpet and off the sofa.

"I really am sorry, Edgeworth." Phoenix apologised. Edgeworth waved it away with his hand.

"It's not your fault. I'd forgotten that you had no backbone." Phoenix tried not to look offended. "Still, at least they can't do anymore damage, right?" Phoenix grimaced; Edgeworth became panicked. "Right?!" He repeated, his voice rising in pitch. Phoenix looked slightly embarrassed.

"I did try to warn you earlier. Maya can be a bit…unpredictable. I've never done any painting with her, so I didn't know that it would result in a paint fight. Cooking, on the other hand…" Phoenix shuddered, remembering some of the worst occasions of Maya's work in the kitchen, ranging from various burnt and/or inedible food combinations that the girl declared meals to banana milkshake covering his entire kitchen. Edgeworth stared at him for a second, before jumping up and almost running to the kitchen door. He tried to open it, only to discover that is was locked. He started banging on the door.

"MAYA! PEARL!" There was a click as the door was opened a crack, and Pearl's head half poked through.

"Yes Mr. Edgeworth and Mr. Nick?" Edgeworth was clearly struggling to remain calm.

"I demand that you let me into my kitchen, before you-" Maya's head appeared above Pearl's.

"Uh, uh, uh!" She interrupted. "Sorry Mr. Edgeworth, but I can't let you in until lunch is ready. Like a magician, a true chef never reveals her secrets." With that, both heads went back in and the door was shut and locked. Edgeworth turned back to Phoenix, breathing harshly.

"Wright, if they do something to my kitchen, I swear I'll-" A loud crash cut him off. The two men stared at each other, then at the door. It opened enough for Maya's head to stick out again.

"Er… Lunch might be a _tad_ late today. But you're not finished cleaning up yet anyway…right?" She ended quite feebly, as both men were advancing on the kitchen with identical expressions. "Nick…why are you glaring at me like that?" Edgeworth ignored her and pushed the door open. He took a couple of steps into the kitchen and stopped.

"Oh no…" He could just make out Edgeworth's face dropping. "No. That was BRAND NEW!" You… You…" He paused. "WRIGHT!" Phoenix stepped cautiously into the kitchen. He took one look around, and he wasn't sure whether to laugh or cry. The cooker, which he was guessing had been a shiny stainless steel until very recently, was now almost completely covered in some kind of unidentifiable black substance. The sink had a pot that looked to be in a similar condition. There was a mangled loaf of bread sitting on the side surrounded by a sea of crumbs, and the bits of crust scattered across the floor suggested that there had been another fight between the girls, only this time with bread as ammo. Quite near the bread, there was a jar, surrounded by a sea of what appeared to be strawberry jam. Far from being empty, the jar was filled with some sort of sticky substance that was reminiscent of what you achieve when you mix several different colours of paint together. Some other jars, half full of various spreads and condiments were spread out over the work-top. The fridge was wide open, with what looked like large amounts of milk or cream lying in puddles inside it. The things that really caught Phoenix's attention was what he presumed to be the source of the crash. One of the top cupboards was open, and mostly empty. Beneath it on the floor was Pearl, with a number of food items on top of her, namely a large, empty flour bag. The fact that the whole kitchen seemed to have a layer of white coating it pointed towards the fact that the bag of flour had once been rather full.

Phoenix rolled his eyes at his assistant and proceeded to begin rescuing Pearl from her position on the floor. Unlike Edgeworth, he was well used to her kitchen disasters and what was in front of him was no worse than the last time she'd tried to make dinner when he wasn't there.

"What….What…?" Edgeworth tried to ask, but was still finding it difficult to form the words. Maya seemed to understand what he was getting at though. She put a hand to her chin in a thoughtful expression as if she didn't fully understand what had happened either.

"Well… Pearl suggested we make eggs. I've never been very good at frying them, so I decided to do them scrambled." For the first time, Phoenix noticed that there were indeed a pile of egg shells sitting on the worktop. "But then I couldn't remember what went into them other that eggs. You know, like if it was butter or milk or cream…So I used them all!" She smiled brightly at this, before returning to her previous expression. "But Pearl couldn't really reach the milk, so…" She gestured towards the spill in the fridge. "Anyway, while I was trying to clean the milk up, I forgot about the eggs, and they over flowed a bit and burnt a little.

"A little?!" Edgeworth interrupted, voicing Phoenix's thoughts. Maya carried on like he hadn't spoken.

"I thought they might be ok, but then Pearl tried them and said that they were inedible." Maya smiled brightly again. "So then we decided we'd make sandwiches! Pearl was going to cut the bread while I was going to find the fillings." Pearl took over.

"Except, I've never used a knife before." She looked down, apparently ashamed. "I…I wasn't very good at it. I think I just managed to ruin Mr. Edgeworth's bread. I also got a lot of crumbs everywhere. And…and Mystic Maya decided we could use the ruined slices in a game…" She didn't continue, and she didn't really need to.

"I couldn't find any decent fillings. Mr. Edgeworth, are your cupboards always filled with boring food?" She didn't wait for an answer. "I was going to make us some CCBP sandwiches – remember those Nick?" Phoenix shuddered. Edgeworth looked at him in a silent question.

"Cream cheese, chilli sauce, bacon and peanut butter. Maya swears by 'em" Edgeworth shuddered.

"And aren't they just the best?" Maya asked happily. "Anyway, Mr. Edgeworth didn't have any bacon, so I thought I'd whip up some of my own 'Samurai Spread' for some 'Samurai Sandwiches' for us all." Again, Phoenix shuddered. Like the CCBPs, Phoenix had been forced to choke down more than his fair share of Maya's 'Samurai Sandwiches'.

"I'm almost afraid to ask, but what, exactly, is in 'Samurai Spread'?" Edgeworth demanded through gritted teeth.

"Samurais are supposed to be able to be strong, and make do with whatever they've got, right? So 'Samurai Spread' is a delicious combination of whatever you happen to have!" She smiled, exceedingly pleased with her creation. "In this case, strawberry jam, cream cheese, chilli sauce, peanut butter, marmite and chocolate spread!" Phoenix had a sudden urge to be sick, and from Edgeworth's expression, he was fighting the exact same desire. "I needed a pot to mix it all up in, so I poured some of the jam away, only I accidentally poured it onto the work top. Then I put all the other stuff in with the jam, and voila! Samurai Spread." Edgeworth still seemed to be trying not to throw up, so Phoenix decided to get the last of the explanation from Maya.

"And what about the bad of flour that was on top of Pearl? How does that fit into all of this?" Maya looked thoughtful again.

"I tried some of the 'Samurai Spread' and the flavour was a bit…off ." Phoenix stared at her. 'Off' wasn't the word he'd use to describe the concoction. "So I asked Pearl to see if she could find anything else to add. She opened that cupboard, and…" She gestured to the pile of food on the floor. Phoenix glanced at Edgeworth, who had apparently regained some of his cool.

"Right. Well, I think Wright and myself have some more cleaning to do. You girls go off and find…_something_ to do, and we'll come and find you when we're finished." Both girls bowed.

"Of course Mr. Edgeworth!" Pear answered.

"Yeah, we'll go and clean the paint rollers!" Maya added. The two girls left the kitchen. Edgeworth turned his furious gaze to Phoenix.

"Wright…I hope you know that I am holding you responsible for all damage that has occurred today." Phoenix's mouth fell open.

"Me?! _I_ haven't done anything! It's not my fault if you invited two hyperactive girls round and expected them _not_ to destroy everything!"

"As I already said, I foolishly expected that a grown man would be able to exert _some _control over an eight year old and an eighteen year old! I mean come on Wright!" Phoenix rolled his eyes.

"Those two are uncontrollable! I refuse to accept responsibility for it! I'm willing to help you clean up, but that's it." Edgeworth looked at him with a slightly murderous expression.

"Wright…" He froze. "Hang on. What did Maya say they were going to do?" Phoenix frowned.

"I think she said she was going to…" Oh no. "clean the… paint rollers." The two remained where they were for a few moments, the same thoughts running through their minds.

"MAYA!" Edgeworth yelled.

"PEARL!" Phoenix yelled. They both flew out of the kitchen and looked around for some sign of the girls. Edgeworth raised a shaking hand towards the bathroom.

"There." He practically whimpered, and with good reason. The carpet was rapidly darkening in colour as water poured out from under the bathroom door. Phoenix decided that he should take charge. He walked slowly forwards and gingerly moved his hand to the door handle. He took a deep breath and turned it. The sight that met his eyes made him tempted to slam the door shut again.

"Oh no…" He whispered.

"What? What have they done to my bathroom?" Edgeworth asked. Phoenix could only gesture in front of him. Edgeworth slowly approached, and upon seeing what was beyond the doorframe his expression became identical to Phoenix's.

Pearl and Maya were both knelt down next to the bath, both diligently rinsing out a roller each. The bath was covered in the same pink paint that had already caused so much destruction that day. The sink was also covered in paint, and was full of various paint brushes. The bath taps were both running and the bath had long since over flown and the floor was drenched with one inch deep of water. To top the whole thing off, the girls had done _something_ to the sink, so that the actual tap was no longer there and the water was spurting straight up to completely soak the ceiling.

"I'm not even going to ask." Phoenix breathed. Maya stood up.

"Mr. Edgeworth, we think your sink is broken." She glanced over at it. "No other sink that I've ever used has done _that_ before. But I'm sure you can get it fixed, right?" She gave him a huge smile. Edgeworth stormed back into the living room. Phoenix, Maya and Pearl looked at each other, then followed after him.

"Mr. Edgeworth, are you all right?" Pearl asked. Edgeworth whirled around to face them

"Get out." He whispered. Maya frowned.

"But we haven't finished painting-"

"Get out!" He shouted. The other stayed unmoving, staring at him. "Are you listening?! Go, go, go!" They all moved towards the door.

"NOT you, Wright!" Edgeworth cried, pointing dramatically at him. "YOU still have to help me clear everything up! But you two girls? Get out of my house!" Phoenix begrudgingly made his way back over to Edgeworth as the two girls slipped out of the front door. A second later, Maya opened the door and stuck her head back into the room.

"So, same time tomorrow?"

"ARGGHHHHHHHH!"

**Ok, I hope no one was too out of character. I also hope that it was funny in parts. I really don't like putting anything I write under humour, but there wasn't a better category.**

**Interesting side note, the CCBP (Cream cheese, Chilli sauce, Bacon and Peanut butter) sandwich is actually a real sandwich. I discovered it when I was in a café on holiday in Wales with my family. Although I didn't try it myself (aside from everything else, I'm vegetarian), the menu described it as 'weird but wonderful'. **


End file.
